The true story behind the amazing Minecraft Enterprise-D

It's everywhere: that majestic Enterprise-D, built from within a Minecraft …

There is a Minecraft video making its way around the Internet. In it, you see the side of a wall, and hear a man's voice explaining your position at the bottom of a huge well. Then the camera turns and you see the immense body of the starship Enterprise, created using blocks in Minecraft. It's breathtaking. "The D was 'my Enterprise.' It was the one I grew up watching on TV," its creator, Joshua Walker, told Ars. It was always his dream to one day create a 1:1 scale model of the ship, and using the game he was finally able to realize that dream (albeit virtually).

Then Felicia Day tweeted about it, and the gaming blogs picked up the story. Now the video of that enormous ship is all over the Internet. Here's how it was made.

It wasn't supposed to be a big deal

"The thing is, I didn't mean for this to get that popular. It was just a silly weekend project. I made the video to show off what I considered a silly amusement in the Penny Arcade forums, and then went to bed." By the time he woke up, the video had spread like wildfire. "I think also it's the fact it just the frame of the ship that sparks the imagination. It would probably have just been another Enterprise model if I skinned it." He has a point, the skeleton of the ship is amazing to see, and it shows how much work and design went into its creation. This isn't just a 3D model—it has structure, and internal supports.

Minecraft Enterprise

It helps that Walker has been studying the design of the Enterprise for a long time. "In order to learn how to use Google Sketchup, I decided to make the Enterprise-D in that first," he told Ars. "Sadly, my hard drive blew and I lost six months of work. The only thing I had was my original framework and it was just too painful to start over. One of the things that was not lost was the deck plans that were in a nice computer-friendly vector format."

How it was done

He used the plans created by Ed Whitefire, who was commissioned to create the original plans before being replaced by Mike Okuda. Whitefire's plans are available online, and Walker used those as a reference.

"I originally took all the decks from the Whitefire plans and layered them in Gimp. I then re-sized the plans to a 1 pixel = 1 meter scale." He then reduced each deck to a two-color bitmap exported as a layer, which he considers the most tedious part of the project. "After that, the level editor for Minecraft sucked up each layer and spit out what you saw. When I wandered around on the ship for the first time, I was so pleased it worked out so well."

No, it's not

There has also been some skepticism about how the ship was constructed. Is this a fake? "If they mean fake by 'I didn't lay down every block' well, yes, I used a computer to help, but it's just a tool," Walker explained. "I just applied a little ingenuity to make what I did. If it seems cheap, well, it was something I whipped up for fun. I didn't mean for it to blow up and get scrutinized by people from around the world."

An example of Walker's work in SketchUp

Walker has the right attitude about his project, and the creativity and fun behind it. "Keep in mind, good computer art is not billions and billions of polygons, but how good you can make something look with the limited tools and resources at your disposal," he told Ars. Indeed.

Joshua Walker, we salute you. You made something awesome, and now you're Internet famous.

minecraft looks to be an incredible waste of time, similar to the way any of these roll playing games that take up months and months of your life (you don't get those back you know). When you are on your death bed, are you going to be happy you spent a good chunk of your life in a virtual world building a virtual house/character?

All that being said, the videos I was watching in the other minecraft thread people posted in the comments were funny as hell. There is certainly some entertainment value in those. I just don't see myself being interested in actually playing the game.

As a long time Register reader, one of the most confusing things about coming to Ars was all the video game coverage. I just treat it as background noise, more or less, but my first impression of Ars was that it was a pop-sci PC-world type junk magazine. It wasn't until a couple of premier articles that I thought it had any credibility. If that is what the readers want, then whatever, but that was my take on it.

Two posts in one day in the gaming sub-section of Ars when on previous days there was none does not constitute a Minecraft invasion. If anything Ars is just catching up on news of a game that has been around and quite popular for some time. Complain when its nothing but Minecraft news for two weeks and little other gaming coverage. Then it would be like Apple/iPhone coverage in the past (before they finally got a clue that Android was just as popular).

As a long time Register reader, one of the most confusing things about coming to Ars was all the video game coverage. I just treat it as background noise, more or less, but my first impression of Ars was that it was a pop-sci PC-world type junk magazine. It wasn't until a couple of premier articles that I thought it had any credibility. If that is what the readers want, then whatever, but that was my take on it.

Edited to add: BTW, the game looks pretty cool though

If you "just treat it as background noise" then what are you doing actively participating in it with a post?

Two posts in one day in the gaming sub-section of Ars when on previous days there was none does not constitute a Minecraft invasion. If anything Ars is just catching up on news of a game that has been around and quite popular for some time. Complain when its nothing but Minecraft news for two weeks and little other gaming coverage.

Well, in all seriousness I also didn't just want to point you guys towards the game, I knew it was already out there and popular. We waited until we had two good stories you weren't reading other places. I'm really happy with our Minecraft coverage.

- Import this as a ship in the Star Trek MMO- Recreate every ST:TNG episode using Minecraft Multiplayer when it arrives (in beta, right?)- Build an Imperial Star Destroyer and then just SMASH THEM TOGETHER HEAD-ON, LIKE, BANGBANGBANGBANG-KABOOMKABLOOWIE, andtheblocksareflyingeverywhere&everyoneislike OHNO andthenPLAYITALLBACKWARD -IN- -SLOW- -MOTION- and sell it as a screensaver for Android Phones for like $2.

As a long time Register reader, one of the most confusing things about coming to Ars was all the video game coverage. I just treat it as background noise, more or less, but my first impression of Ars was that it was a pop-sci PC-world type junk magazine. It wasn't until a couple of premier articles that I thought it had any credibility. If that is what the readers want, then whatever, but that was my take on it.

Edited to add: BTW, the game looks pretty cool though

Ars has covered gaming news since I came here in 1999, just back then it didn't have its own dedicated section and journalist(s). Of course, I also remember when you could read 10 page white papers on Intel or AMD's new CPU architecture (of course the guy who wrote those moved on to start his own site for the more hardcore technology enthusiast, tech-report.com). Ars is a (computer) technology site, video games fall under technology, and by tangent Ars covers other nerdy/geeky subject matter that the same audience that reads tech news usually takes an interest in.

minecraft looks to be an incredible waste of time, similar to the way any of these roll playing games that take up months and months of your life (you don't get those back you know). When you are on your death bed, are you going to be happy you spent a good chunk of your life in a virtual world building a virtual house/character?

Two posts in one day in the gaming sub-section of Ars when on previous days there was none does not constitute a Minecraft invasion. If anything Ars is just catching up on news of a game that has been around and quite popular for some time. Complain when its nothing but Minecraft news for two weeks and little other gaming coverage.

Well, in all seriousness I also didn't just want to point you guys towards the game, I knew it was already out there and popular. We waited until we had two good stories you weren't reading other places. I'm really happy with our Minecraft coverage.

Well I am also more appreciative of it since I just rekindled my addiction to it thanks to the PA comic (and by proxy my wife is probably more addicted). The problem is it is very distracting at work, and makes me want to shirk all previous engagements, head home and play Minecraft.

I'm confused. The article seems to describe an Enterprise-D that can be walked around, but all the video shows is a giant skeleton made up of what appears to be crude outlines of each deck all stacked together.

But you're okay with watching videos about time-wasting video games? Ages and ages hence, will you be bragging to you grandchildren about the road not taken?

kleinma wrote:

minecraft looks to be an incredible waste of time, similar to the way any of these roll playing games that take up months and months of your life (you don't get those back you know). When you are on your death bed, are you going to be happy you spent a good chunk of your life in a virtual world building a virtual house/character?

All that being said, the videos I was watching in the other minecraft thread people posted in the comments were funny as hell. There is certainly some entertainment value in those. I just don't see myself being interested in actually playing the game.

minecraft looks to be an incredible waste of time, similar to the way any of these roll playing games that take up months and months of your life (you don't get those back you know). When you are on your death bed, are you going to be happy you spent a good chunk of your life in a virtual world building a virtual house/character?

All that being said, the videos I was watching in the other minecraft thread people posted in the comments were funny as hell. There is certainly some entertainment value in those. I just don't see myself being interested in actually playing the game.

You can say this about any game/hobby which doesn't build any usable skill.